Miami-based facial recognition software company Kairos announced today that it has acquired emotion analysis company IMRSV for $2.7 million. IMRSV will be folded into Kairos' business structure rather than existing as a separate entity.

Prior to the acquisition, Kairos was a customer of IMRSV, incorporating their technology of emotional analysis into their facial recognition offerings.

"The impetus for emotional analysis," Kairos CEO Brian Brackeen told me. "Came from our customers. One of them, for example, was a bank that was using our facial recognition as a means of authentication. They came back later and said that there were scenarios when access might be desired by the right person, with the right code, but we don't want them to have it. Like if they're anxious, maybe that's because it's the day they're going to rob the bank."

Another reason for the acquisition, Brackeen told me, was the company's developer focus. As part of the acquisition announcement, the company has also introduced new APIs and an SDK for facial recognition, emotion analysis and crowd analytics. Being able to combine emotion analysis and facial recognition means there are fewer APIs for developers to deal with, allowing them to incorporate Kairos' technology more quickly.

As an added benefit, Brackeen said, the company also expects the acquisition to enable them to develop better products more quickly.

"Now we'll have one API and code base to work with," Brackeen said. "But more importantly, the larger sciences of computer vision and machine learning build on each other. This allows the improvement of both our facial recognition and emotion analysis because the synergies between the two are very strong."